


Nah, she didn't

by Alice_Prongs



Series: Jily One-Shots [14]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Lily doesn't hate James, Romance, but just a tiny tiny bit, i don't know how to tag, just the jily relationship through the Hogwarts years the way I see it, kind of headcanon-y
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Prongs/pseuds/Alice_Prongs
Summary: In first year, she yells at him more than talks, but he makes her laugh, sometimes. In second year, she feels like punching him because he fights with Severus almost every day, but tries acting perfectly pleasant with her. In third year, he helps her with Transfiguration. In forth year, he's the nicest he's ever been. In fifth year, she says she hates him. In sixth year, she starts crushing on him. In seventh year, she kisses him when he's least expecting it.orJames and Lily's relationship through the years, and how she didn't actually hate him.





	Nah, she didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! It's still Halloween here so I'm counting this as a jilytober submission. I started writing it after seeing a prompt of a fic inspired by the 'nah, she didn't' line, and it just kind of went from there. I don't really know what this is, but I'm quite fond of it, so I'm posting it now. I hope you guys like it, and tell me what you think! Happy end of jilytober everyone, James and Lily didn't die <3

_In first year_ , she yells at him more than talks, but he makes her laugh, sometimes. The Gryffindors first years are all friends, and even if he annoys her, she considers him one too. He's an idiot, sure, but she knows he acts foolish so that Remus will laugh more, and to get Sirius to crack a smile, and so Peter will look happy. And even though she doesn't admit it, she knows he also does it so she can temporarily forget the harsh words Petunia writes in her letters when she deems Lily with an answer. He doesn't know what gets her sad every time she receives one of them, because she refuses to tell him, but he tries his best to make her feel better anyway.

He tells her Quidditch is the best and that flying on a broom is life changing, but she doesn't really believe him – it looks too dangerous –, but when the other boys start bugging her about it, he takes it upon himself to teach her how to fly. Somehow, he manages to get them a broom and a little time on the Quidditch pitch while also convincing her to fly with him. She climbs on the broom behind him, and has to wrap her arms around his waist, and as they go up in the air she closes her eyes tightly because _this is wrong, it's not possible, it's too dangerous_. She doesn't realize she's saying it out loud until he whispers to her that 'no, it's magic, Evans'. She opens her eyes then, and she's _flying_. It's impossible, but it's happening, and it's wonderful. He doesn't take her very high, and she's thankful for it, even though she never says it, because she thinks it would have been too much – and she thinks he knows it. They don't really talk much about it afterwards, but in the next flying lesson with Madam Hooch she's not scared at all and the boys can't tease her anymore and when he grins at her, she grins at him back.  There are barely any fights between them for the rest of the school year, and no one but them knows why – even though Sirius, Marlene and Severus all try to figure it out, with different degrees of interest on the matter.

He already likes pranks more than it’s probably healthy and she falls for them more times than she cares to admit. It renders them a whole bunch of screaming matches, and also payback. She’s never been one to take things quietly, so James Potter ends up with purple hair one morning. He’s still funny with some of them, and when Lucius Malfoy’s robes turn pink in the middle of the Great Hall, she can’t help but snort at his fury. The only fights she has with Sev all year are when she doesn’t get mad at something Potter does. He’s always trying to argument with her about how he targets him more than anyone else. Lily’s always on Sev’s side, because he’s her best friend, but she also feels like the hate – and the hexing – between the two boys is mutual. She doesn’t say that to anyone else, though.

She’s pretty sure Potter thinks she hates him. She’s pretty sure she doesn’t.

 

 _In second year_ , she feels like punching him because he fights with Severus almost every day, but tries acting perfectly pleasant with her. She can't understand their hate for each other – simple House rivalry seems a bit stupid now – and why Potter feels he has any right to pick on him the way he does. She gets her fair share of detentions for hexing the boys back after they do something to Sev, and doesn't regret it. Sometimes, she thinks she catches Potter staring at her right after she gets him back for something as if he's completely star struck. She doesn’t think much about it, because boys are idiots, and James Potter is no exception.

She figures out about Remus's 'furry little problem' just before the rest of the boys do, and she approves of the fact that none of them change the way they treat him. He keeps acting weird around her afterwards, though, and she needs to give him a pep talk about friendship and not leaving people behind and Potter ends up hearing it. He smiles a tad bit wider to her in breakfast the next morning, and maybe she smiles back. Severus also starts making guesses at why Remus vanishes or gets sick once a month, and Lily tries her best to get him off the trail. Potter thanks her for it– it's the first time he's ever done so, probably –, but she only tells him she's doing it for Remus, who's her friend.

Potter doesn't make the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and acts like he doesn't care at all about it, but she finds him alone in the Common Room the same night the announcement had gone up. He’s sitting still – it's the only time she's seen him not move for a long period of time – and staring at the flames. She sits down next to him and they talk. He tells her about Quidditch and flying with his mom and how he's scared he won't make his parents proud. She rolls her eyes and tells him he's got time – and talent, she admits begrudgingly – to give their house the Quidditch Cup. He smiles brilliantly at her and says thank you again – she’s actually impressed with his new ability to temporarily let go of his ego.

He's brilliant at Transfiguration and she's crap at it, but when he asks her if she wants any help, she refuses – she can feel Sev's stare on the back of her head and she’s way too proud to admit she needs help anyway. She catches Potter, Black and Pettigrew together at the library more times than she can count, huddling and talking in hushed voices over a table, with tons of books surrounding them. She thinks it's weird and that those books look way too old and big to be anything good or class-related. Remus is never with them, which makes it even weirder – why would they be congregating in the library without the only one of them that actually studies or reads? She keeps waiting for some big prank to go down, but it never comes.

 

 _In third year_ , he helps her with Transfiguration. She's less prideful than she was the year before, and he asks her when they’re far away from Severus, and she really needs to get better at it, so she says yes. They meet in the library, and sometimes in empty classrooms, and he makes sure she understands all the wand movements and how to say every single spell correctly, and she’s improving by the end of the first class. She gets a look full of pride from McGonagall that makes her beam at him, and he smiles fondly back at her – it renders him a slap on the back of the head from Sirius for acting like an idiot. Severus notices it, though, and when he finds out Lily’s been meeting Potter, they fight. It’s worse than any other fight they’ve had, and she calls off the classes. She hears Potter telling his friends about how stupid it was of her to do that just because of _Snivellus_ , and then they fight too.

He gets into the Quidditch team, and so does Marley, and in the first Gryffindor game of the season she goes cheer for her friend. Potter is so nervous he almost falls off his broom, and Remus is sitting next to her with a worried look on his face, and Black is laughing but she can see he doesn’t find it funny, and Peter is staring at him wide eyed and scared, so she yells at him to get a grip. He does, and scores three goals – he points at the boys after each one, though Alice and Mary and Dorcas think he pointed at her, but she’s sure that they just imagined it, because _Remus was right next to her_ , so it’s a common mistake to make. They start talking again after the game, and he doesn’t actually say he’s sorry for before, but she knows he’s trying to compensate for it by being extra nice to her.

It doesn’t stop him from pranking Severus, though, or hexing random people in the hallways, and so their screaming matches still keep on going. She calls him an immature arrogant toerag, and he says she’s a stuck up prude. She almost punches him once, but McGonagall arrives right on time and she controls herself. She’s better at getting out of detentions and enjoys looking on smugly as he still spends his evenings cleaning trophies. They don’t fight when they win the Quidditch House Cup, though, because he scored at least six goals in that hours long match and Marley is beaming next to her because she was able to knock a Slytherin Chaser out of his broom and they’re both too happy about it to find a reason to be angry at each other – she even congratulates him with a hug after the match because she was feeling mature.

When she’s back at King’s Cross and they see each other from afar, she allows herself to give him a little smile as she leaves with her parents and Severus.

 

 _In forth year_ , he's the nicest he's ever been. He’s still every bit as arrogant and egomaniac as he’s always been, but he doesn’t act like an idiot with her. He does tend to not be able to get through an entire phrase without putting his foot in his mouth whenever she’s around, but she blames it on natural teenage idiocy. It’s not like Sirius or Peter are any better, and she can’t blame them for being fourteen.

The first Hogsmeade weekend approaches and the fourth years start trying to get themselves dates. She’s starting to notice boys now, and fifth year Amos Diggory is really cute and actually talks to her sometimes. She bumps into Potter one morning on the way to Transfiguration and he acts weird and babbles through words of Hogsmeade and walking and she doesn’t understand a thing. Before she can ask what’s wrong with him, he’s blushing and practically running away from her. The rest of the boys laugh throughout the entire class and when she tells the Marlene what happened she stares at her as if she’s crazy, and tells her she’s oblivious – she still can’t understand what’s going on, because Potter’s just weird. He goes to Hogsmeade with Clary from Hufflepuff and she walks around with Sev because her other friends all have dates. The next day she hears Potter telling Black that Severus is her boyfriend, and she can’t help but laugh at the impossible notion as she assures them that they’re just best friends.

She’s fighting more and more with Severus, because he keeps hanging out with boys like Mulciber, that actually hurt people like _her_ – muggleborns – and he still gets mad every time he sees her talking with one of the marauders – the new nickname Potter, Black, Pettigrew and Remus adopted for their little ‘group of mates’ because they’re ridiculous. Potter finds her after one of their worst fights, when she’s hiding in the library, and sits down next to her. He asks her if she’s fine and she tells him she is. He starts telling her a story about something stupid Black did and she says she didn’t know he could be this eloquent. He laughs, and so does she, and Madam Pince kicks them out. He’s blushing and winded, and she laughs some more at his face.

  

 _In fifth year_ , she says she hates him. They start off as friends, better than they’ve ever been before, probably. She’s fighting with Severus often, now, the reasons being either his Slytherin dark magic lovers friends or her own friendship with the Marauders, but Potter doesn’t intrude in it. He starts vanishing along with Remus every full moon, and she can’t help but be worried about what those boys are up to. He manages a corporeal patronus in DADA – it’s a magnificent stag – and she can’t help but be jealous of it when the only thing she’s able to do is a few wisps of white light. Black teases her about it after his own gigantic dog leaps out of his wand, and Potter slaps him on the back of the head and tells him to shut it. She doesn’t tell him she’s grateful for it.

She’s a prefect now, with Remus, and they get closer after doing many rounds together. They start studying together, since apparently none of their friends understand their apprehension towards the OWLs. Potter walks in on one of their study sessions in the library, and looks at them with wide eyes and red cheeks, to storm off a moment later. She doesn’t understand what happened, but Remus looks worried, and Potter’s rude to her for the next couple of days. She catches the two of them having some kind of argument, and after that he starts behaving normally again.

He’s made Quidditch Captain too, since Terrence Wood had graduated the past year, and it inflates his ego even more, if that’s even possible. He starts walking around with a Snitch, playing with it as if he’s ever played a Seeker – which she’s certain he hasn’t. It’s not like he’s a bad Captain, though, quite the opposite actually. Marlene tells her he’s strong minded and focused and trying his best, but that doesn’t mean he’s not insufferable outside the Quidditch pitch, with all his showing off – telling her he’s the best Gryffindor player since McGonagall made him Captain, acting like he knows everything about the game. He uses it to give himself something to say when talking to other girls, and Lily thinks it’s ridiculous every time she sees one of them falling for it.

Their fights increase again, because she’s catching him red handed in the middle of pranks and hexes and now she can’t help but give him detention every single time it happens. He gets mad about it, but there’s nothing she can do – she was given a job by McGonagall and Dumbledore, and she was not going to screw it up. It’s not her fault he acts like an immature toerag, after all. Black is the one that gets mad at her the most, though, and every time she gives him detention or takes points from Gryffindor, he stops talking with her for at least a couple of days. She laughs it off every time, because not talking with Sirius Black changes absolutely nothing in her life. She does act unfair to Potter sometimes, though, and when she blames him for it all and fails at also giving Amos Diggory a detention after she catches them hexing each other in a hallway, they fight. She recognizes she’s wrong after talking it out with Remus and tells him she’s sorry. He’s beaming and he’s never ‘expected _you_ to apologize to _me_ , Evans’, but he accepts it after she punches his arm lightly for his cheekiness.

Then comes the OWLs. She’s stressed with all the exams she’s taking, her hair’s a mess and she can’t think straight, so when she sees him hanging her best friend by the ankle, she’s _angry_. He’s a bullying toerag and an arrogant prat, always playing with his stupid Snitch even though he’s a Chaser, and messing up his stupid hair, and showing off to try to look like he’s the best at everything – at that exact moment James Potter is everything bad she’s ever thought about him. She yells at him and he asks her out in the middle of all of it and she can’t understand him. She hates him in that moment. She tells herself later that she _still_ hates him, that it was his fault, and that Sev said it because of him, because of stupid _Potter_. It doesn’t last long, though. He tries apologizing once, but she’s not ready for it and yells at him again. Severus tries apologizing too, but he’s gone too far and Lily’s not an idiot. In the end, she leaves Hogwarts with one less friend, and knows, even if she can’t admit it yet, that it was no one’s fault but Snape’s.

 

 _In sixth year_ , she starts crushing on him. They don’t talk for months in the beginning. Potter stays out of her way more than she avoids him, really, and it’s weird. He doesn’t prank people as much, and laughs less too. Remus tells her he’s compensating for what he did on the OWLs and she wonders if that’s what their relationship is going to be like forever – compensating for their stupid mistakes. He doesn’t try apologizing again, and she doesn’t try reaching out to apologize for making him the bad guy of a situation he couldn’t control.

It’s near Christmas when the Marauders fight. Sirius stops hanging around with them and Potter is miserable. She finds him again in the empty Common Room in the middle of the night, sitting in front of the fireplace, still. His hands are gripping in his hair, but he’s not messing it up to look like he just got off a broom this time. He looks like he’s about to tear it out in frustration. She sits beside him on the couch and he jumps in surprise and she asks what’s wrong, but he doesn’t tell her. She knows it’s about Sirius, and she knows how Potter can be when it comes to his friends, and she can’t figure out at all what could possibly make him so mad at his best friend, his brother, that they’re not talking anymore. He doesn’t say anything, but she sits by him, and she thinks it’s enough for now.

The next day, he sits next to her at breakfast and thanks her for being there. She says it was no problem. He smiles. She blushes after kind of staring at his mouth. Sirius and James – she never figures out the exact moment they started treating each other on a first name basis – sort out their issues two weeks later after a long conversation inside an empty classroom she, Marlene, Remus and Peter locked them up in. They all start hanging out together, the girls and the marauders, and it feels weirdly natural to settle into an actual friendship with them. Marlene and James talk Quidditch half of the time, Dorcas and Sirius plot mischievous things on the sidelines, Mary and Remus laugh together over everyone’s stupidities and Alice and Peter share their cooking secrets with each other, while Lily watches all of this and joins in wherever she’s able to fit.

On Valentine’s Day they all discuss how Hogsmeade is going to be like, and Potter admits he’s got a date. Marlene looks at him as if he’s crazy, and Remus shakes his head in disappointment, and Lily watches their reactions in confusion. She doesn’t understand why she feels so sick afterwards, so when Benjy Fenwick asks her out, she says yes – even if she knows he’s had a crush on Hestia for the longest time, and even if she wasn’t really on the mood for a date –, because he’s cute and nice and sweet. Her friends ask her if she’s gone mad, why _Benjy_? The boys find out and Sirius teases her about it, while James just watches their conversation. He goes out with Terri from Ravenclaw, and she doesn’t think about why she doesn’t like seeing them holding hands and laughing together. Remus and Marlene also look at _her_ as if she’s stupid when she leaves Benjy and meets the others in Three Broomsticks. She sees James and Terri through the window and they look happy, and she gets a tight feeling in her chest. She wonders what’s happening to her on the walk back to Hogwarts.

She doesn’t realize it until there’s only one month left of classes. All her classes have decided to give tests in the same week and she’s going crazy in the library – with frizzy hair, eye bags and cramped hands – when James finds her. He sits down across from her, pulls his own books out and lays them on the table. He tells her to stop worrying about Transfiguration and DADA because he’ll help her. She initially scoffs and tells him he’s a stuck up asshole, but he only grins and asks if she’ll help him with Potions and Charms in return. She agrees and grins right back at him. It hits her as he’s showcasing the exact way to flick the wand to change a wardrobe into a rat. She has a crush on James Potter. Everything clicks together then – the way she kept admiring his hair as of lately, the weird jealousy over Terri from Ravenclaw, saying yes to Benjy, laughing at all his jokes, even their fights turned playful banter. And as he looks at her as she tries focusing on explaining the difference between a bezoar and a dittany, she thinks back to fifth year and OWLs and being asked out on a date by the boy with messy hair and an infectious laugh.

She thinks she has horrible timing, because James Potter is completely over her now.

 

 _In seventh year_ , she kisses him when he's least expecting it. They've both been made Head Boy and Head Girl, and even though she's surprised when she hears it's him, she doesn't think Dumbledore made a mistake. He's a true leader, has shown it through the years with Quidditch and even with his friends. He can talk to first years much better than she can, and he’s been improving since sixth year in matters like responsibility and compromise. He’s also on the right side of the war they’re going to face in a year’s time, and she’s pretty sure that’s one of the most important things a Head Boy should be in the middle of everything they’re facing.

They work too well together, and it’s odd – especially when it turns out it’s not odd at all. Soon she gets used to his bad jokes and mischievous grin and weird laugh. She does have to work on controlling her blush around him and on getting over him once and for all, but they’re able to agree in timetables and round schedules and speeches. They almost always arrange everything so they do rounds together, and that’s how she gets to know him better.

They talk, now. They had before, too, but this time they get to know each other. She tells him about how she worries over her parents because they’re muggles and about how her relationship with her sister sucks and he tells her about how he worries about his parents and their health and their old age and about how his weird brotherly relationship with Sirius works. They talk about the war and their prospects for the future. They talk about wanting to fight, and never about backing down.

They’re hanging out by the Lake one day when a Gryffindor sixth year comes over to James and asks him out. He blushes, looks over at Lily quickly and tells the girl they’ll talk later. Lily wants to throw him in the water and watch him drown. They don’t talk about if he actually did go to the girl afterwards or not, but three days later Amos Diggory comes in to talk to her when they’re discussing some Heads’ business. He asks her out too, and she freezes, because fourteen year old Lily is ecstatic. In her hesitation, James excuses himself and goes out the door banging it behind him. She tells Amos no, though, because seventeen year old Lily would rather he had glasses and hazel eyes and a scar on his chin, even if she wouldn’t admit it to anyone else. James seems to be avoiding her afterwards, until she confronts him about it with some screaming that she was not used to anymore and they’re okay again.

She has talks with Alice about feeling weird about James and Marlene about not wanting to ruin anything and Dorcas about feeling bad for her bad timing and Mary about being insecure over what he feels for her. They all tell her to woman up and tell him everything. Remus eavesdrops and says she’s being stupid. Sirius finds out and almost jumps up in happiness at the thought of her and James getting together. Peter doesn’t notice anything and looks shocked when he catches them kissing in the middle of the Common Room. But it’s Frank Longbottom that gives her what she needs to go after him. She’s talking with Alice when he arrives and sits with them, listening as she tells her friend about her latest embarrassment in front of him because of that stupid crush. Frank just snorts and asks her how she can be so in love with James bloody Potter and not see that he goes through those same embarrassments every day around her.

And that’s how she does notice it when they’re doing rounds together again and James says something that sounds vaguely flirty and blushes and stumbles and _Merlin, he likes her too_. And it’s all too much to Lily and the next thing she knows she’s backed him into a wall and her arms are around his neck and she’s kissing him when actually they should be catching other miscreants doing that exact same thing after curfew. It takes James a few seconds to actually respond to the kiss, but once he does, he’s incredibly enthusiastic about it and makes up for any lost time. They sit down in an empty classroom after they’ve calmed down enough, and he doesn’t let go of her hand, and they talk about feelings and dating and yes, they’re boyfriend and girlfriend now, Sirius will be so insufferable about this. She can’t stop smiling as they go back to their dorms and he gives her a goodnight kiss and she’s never felt happier.

The next day he greets her with a huge smile and a kiss on the cheek, but she isn’t having it, so she grabs his face and kisses him on the mouth. There’s a collective gasp in the Gryffindor Common Room, and then their friends go crazy on them. Mary is asking for details and Marlene is being inappropriate and Alice is beaming almost as much as Lily and Dorcas is telling everyone that she already knew this was going to happen. Peter just gapes at the, and Sirius is laughing in joy and smugness and Remus just stands there with a knowing look. That’s when they find out that Sirius had actually enrolled Diggory and the sixth year Gryffindor into asking them out in front of the other so they’d both get jealous and realize their feelings for each other. Dorcas snorts because she had told him it wasn’t going to work.

News travel fast after that, and soon the whole castle knows, including Severus. The first moment she’s alone, he stops her in an empty hallway, and asks for an explanation, and then they’re fighting again, because she owes him _nothing_ and yes, she _is_ dating James freaking Potter and she _is_ happy with him, but it’s none of his business. And he’s mad at her and she’s angry because he has _no right_ to feel that way. He hurt her, he called her a _mudblood_ , he allied himself with Death Eaters, it’s not her fault when all she ever did was be his friend. He tells her he loves her, she tells him to let her go. It’s the only moment in the entire day that she’s not smiling. When James meets her again, she tells him what happened and he doesn’t say that he’s going after Severus Snape to make him regret it, he only hugs her and tells her he’ll always be there for her.

She finally manages a corporeal patronus afterwards, hiding in the safety of her room, and it’s a freaking _doe_. James has never looked as smug as when she shows it to him. Their relationship goes smoothly, mostly. They still fight – she doesn’t think they’ll ever stop fighting – but they’re now able to solve their issues with a conversation and a few kisses. Their friends complain about them being sickeningly in love, but they don’t care – it feels right, when she thinks about it, to be in love with James Potter. He’s still an arrogant idiot, but he now knows how to reign himself in around her, since he doesn’t have to impress her as much anymore. They enjoy their last months at Hogwarts together, and it feels good to be able to run around the castle grounds with her friends or to arrive late at History of Magic because she and James had spent a little too much time snogging or to laugh so hard when Sirius does something weird at breakfast that pumpkin juice comes out of her nose. It feels good to smile up at James, who’s always there now, right next to her. She feels like a teenager, and she doesn’t like thinking of when they’ll have to grow up.

She’s at every single one of his matches now, cheering for him just as much as she does for Marlene. She wears his Quidditch jersey every time, but the first time he sees her in it, he flushes and stumbles and has difficulty speaking without taking his eyes off her. It’s incredibly adorable when he acts smitten with her, and her new favorite hobby is to get him all flustered and uncomfortable – and Sirius is her partner in crime for this.

They’ve established that they’re all fighting in the war. It’s not even a discussion, really. Alice and Frank are both ready to enroll in the Auror Academy, while the marauders are talking about the Order of the Phoenix and other organizations where they can get into to fight immediately after leaving school, without having to go through training or any place that might not accept Remus. Lily has dreamed of being a Healer for a long time, but she’s muggleborn, just like Mary, and not many institutions are accepting them at this time. Marlene and Dorcas put on their brave faces and tell them they’re going to kick some Death Eater ass, no matter what their families say. Marley’s brother is an Auror too, and is already helping them learn how to help in the war. Lily and James have arguments sometimes, about it, because he’s worried for her safety for being a muggleborn and she’s worried for his safety for dating her and in the end, Mary sits them down and tells them they’re both idiots. They decide they’ll only protect themselves, then, by fighting together. They’ll be living together too, once they’re out, with Sirius and Remus across from them and Marley and Dorcas one floor down. Alice and Frank are moving to a little house once they’re done with training, and Mary is too independent to live with anyone else, while Peter is staying with his mom for longer.

They leave school with a sad smile from McGonagall, crushing hugs from Hagrid and a ‘see you soon’ from Dumbledore. They’re all entering the Order of the Phoenix, they’re all sticking together. Lily raises her head high as she walks past Avery and Mulciber, because she might be muggleborn, and they might be targeting her, but she’s a Gryffindor and a Head Girl and damn good at Charms and Potions, and she’d be damned if she would let them get her down. They’re leaving now and there’s a war ahead. She gives Severus one last sad glance, thinking about how the next time they see each other, they’ll probably be on opposite sides of a battlefield. James smiles at her as he wraps an arm around her waist and kisses her temple – she hugs him right back. Sirius winks and tells her a stupid joke and she can’t help but laugh. Remus gives her back the book she lent him months ago with a thank you and bags under his eyes. Peter jumps up and down around them and she calms him because everything is going to be alright. Marlene holds up her broom and tells James he was a crappy Captain. Dorcas watches them all and only dignifies them with a few snorts when they’re stupid. Alice and Frank hug each other, much like James and Lil, and act just as adorable as they always have. Mary tells them some final truths before they leave. They climb aboard the carriages and later the train.

Lily Evans realizes she never had truly hated James Potter. She realizes she loves him, and she tells him that. He beams and lifts her up and spins her around and tells her he loves her too in between laughs and kisses.


End file.
